Nothing to See Here . . .

It’s been glorious here in northern New Jersey where it’s pretty much always beautiful, but now is also balmy, if you can call temps in the 80s balmy, which I can because I have air conditioning. Also allergies, so I’m sneezing a lot.

I am also going down for the third time under the weight of the news. I hate Donald Trump, not just for the dire threat he poses the republic, but because he’s such a banal asshole. If I have to read about this jerk every day, the least he could do is be interesting instead of repeating stupid and dangerous. Stupid-and-dangerous was interesting for awhile, I grant you, but now he’s just churning his schtick. The problem with Donald Trump’s narrative is that he doesn’t ARC. His character path is a flat line. If you’re gonna be the center of a story, Don, you have to change. Sad!

My house is also still a dire mess. I’m following the “do something every day,” but the problem is that that’s a teaspoon and I need a backhoe. I’m trying to lure Krissie and Lani down here under the guise of a goddess weekend and then making them help me fill forty-six dumpsters with the things I can’t get rid of because I might NEED them someday. Lani is excellent at that to the point of ruthlessness: “Have you used that in the last fifteen minutes? No? It goes.” Krissie says, “Put it in a box, I’ll take it to Goodwill on my way home.” Between the two of them, I might be able to see my floor again.

And then there’s the book. I hit that “This is awful, I can’t write, the first twenty books were just a fluke” stage earlier this week, took a deep breath, and told myself to knock it off. So what if it’s awful? Just write the damn thing. I think part of it is that first acts are always a PITA because they’re set-up. You have to introduce all the characters and all the subplots and the setting and the sense of the world while establishing the main conflict in the first pages and moving the plot rapidly. I like Agatha Christie’s solution: Put a list of characters with their descriptions at the start of the story along with a map:”Here are the people, here is the place, now leave me alone, I’m gonna write a puzzle.” One good thing I did is set this on an island so I have a finite, focused setting for the main plot. One bad thing I did was to include the other world which means I have to keep thinking about the damn place. Also, people generally do not like my supernatural stuff as much, which is a shame because I’m kind of into supernatural right now. Where was I? Right, shut up and write the damn book, Crusie.

And then there’s the Olympics, which I do not watch, but I have been glancing at out of the corner of my eye. That diving pool that turned green because of the algae? The kayaker who hit a submerged couch? Who’s running these games, Trump? (Maybe. That couch was HUGE.) (Sorry.) On the other hand there’s Biles and Ledecky and Phelps, who is evidently some kind of mutant, plus the entire US gymnastics team, and that swimmer who pushed the refugee boat ashore, and . . . . Finally, something that makes me feel good about humanity again. Although that algae . . .

Yeah, this post is a waste of digital space. So I’ll give you something that Rozasharn already gave us in the comments, this website that posts pictures of real people with their heights and weights so you can see what somebody who’s 5’8 and weighs 150 actually looks like: The Photographic Height and Weight Chart. And thank you Rosasharn for the link. I was thinking I needed to lose more than I do: 150 looks pretty damn good on real, live people.

And speaking of politics (ARGH), I love that poster at the top of the page. It’s from the store on Clinton’s website, but the Hillary is pretty subtle up there so if you’re anti-Hillary, you could probably just use some white-out.

And now back to work. Or something. Maybe I’ll make pumpkin custard, that sounds good. And banana bread since my bananas are no longer the color of the Olympic diving pool. And brownies, brownies are always good. Also, the upcoming Cherry Saturday post has a picture of a poodle. That’ll be better than this one.

So what’s new with all of you?

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